In Absentia
by Zimraphel
Summary: Every year, Valandil king of Arnor has returned to the Gladden Fields in search of his father Isildur's remains. This year, however, is different. Chapter Two up.
1. Default Chapter

T.A. 150

A light drizzle began to mist the banks of the Anduin, dusting with fine droplets the mail, leather and wool of the Men probing through the reed-thick shallows with their spears.  Some of them paused in their work, gazing skyward at the bruised clouds.

"Keep working," commanded their leader, who stood seemingly unbothered by wind or rain on the high turf of the bank.

"Sire," protested one of the captains, "it has been a month already and we have found nothing.  And last year, and the year before that —"

Valandil silenced him with a cold look.  "I am aware of that, _cáno_.  You will work until I order you to stop."

The captain bowed before the king of Arnor and nervously backed away, for while Valandil was even tempered and rational, even gracious, in all other matters, his reason seemed to abandon him at this turn.  Seventy years they had come here, leaving Annúminas at the height of each summer to journey east through the Hithaeglir where one month out of the year for the last seventy years they floundered among the river reeds by the Gladden Fields.

A few rusted bits of armor they found, in graves looted decades before, and bones that might have been human, but in the water where Valandil's father had fallen there was nothing.  All that had ever been found were Isildur's mail, helm and shield, and those had been discovered and sent back to Annúminas shortly after the battle. 

"Sire," ventured another, older captain, "it _is_ growing late in the season.  If we leave on the morrow, we might make it back to Annúminas before the first snow falls."

"I will not abandon this search so lightly, or so soon."

The other man paused, then said, "Sire, after so many years perhaps it is time to leave off the search."

Valandil glared at Estelmo, but said nothing.  Estelmo had been his eldest brother's esquire, who had been found stunned but alive under Elendur's corpse, one of only a few survivors of the Gladden Fields.  Once recovered from his injuries, Estelmo took a vow to protect the new young king, whether Valandil would have him or no, and in the beginning the youth resented him for surviving where his brother had not.  However, as time passed a strange friendship grew between the two. 

Estelmo might speak where others, even Valandil's own wife and son, feared to venture.  And for seventy years the two had had the same conversation, for seventy years Valandil relented and vowed to return the following year, until his annual pilgrimages drew scorn from among the nobility of Arnor.  Even his own cousin, Meneldil king of Gondor, wrote urging him to let cease this folly.  _For nothing you will find,_ he wrote, _save what the Valar will.  Leave off this futile search and, if it be destined, let Isildur return to you through some higher agency_.

Valandil's response was to crumple the parchment of his cousin's letters and toss it into the brazier.  Meneldil was courteous enough, but rarely revealed his mind; this was one of those few occasions where his true thoughts could be read between the platitudes of official correspondence.  And rumors abounded that, at the time, Meneldil had been more than relieved at his uncle's death, for it left him free to sit upon the throne of Gondor unencumbered by Isildur's well-intentioned meddling. 

He glared at the river, half-obscured now by mist and a light curtain of rain, as if his frown might bend the mighty Anduin to the royal will.  Shame and anger warred within him, for surely after so many years he should have found something.  And suddenly, the sight of his spearmen floundering among the reeds angered him.

"Call them away," he barked at Estelmo.  "I wish to be gone from this place by morning."

"There is someone to see you, _aran-neth_." said Elrond. "His name is Cirion.  He was anohtarin your father's service at the Gladden Fields and he bears you something of great value."

"Unless it is my father's body, I am not interested," answered Valandil.  The fact that nothing of Isildur save his armor had been recovered from the battlefield grated on his son's nerves, and angered him almost as much as his mother's weeping.  He did not want tears, he was a man grown too soon and was through with tears.  Nay, he wanted the blood of those who had taken from him the sire and brothers he had only seen once in his life.

At his back he felt the lord of Imladris staring at him, measuring him.  "Long months it has taken this man and his companion to cross the mountains to reach you, in foul weather and despair, pursued by many enemies.  You may not wish to receive this man, but receive him you will nonetheless.  Even kings must sometimes do that which displeases them."

The fourteen year old king of Arnor shrugged his shoulders at the icy words and fixed his gaze to the floor of the library, indicating his disinterest.  He felt Elrond withdraw from the room, but the absence was only temporary.  Footfalls scraping across the stone floor of the chamber told him his guardian had returned, and the unfamiliar hollow sound of booted feet alongside them told him that another had entered the chamber with Elrond.

Then a figure clad in rough leather and wool was kneeling on the carpet before him, his dark hair spilling forward so Valandil could not see his face.  Elrond remained in the background, observing the exchange.

Valandil made a frustrated noise.  He was not yet accustomed to having others kneel to him, and he was not yet ready to take up the burden of kingship thrust upon him only the day before with the news from the Gladden Fields; he had been told he would remain at Imladris for a few more years yet, until he reached manhood and was able to take up the sceptre of Annúminas in his own name. 

"Get up," he said, "and give me your message."

Behind him, he felt Elrond's disapproval and braced himself against the inevitable lecture he would receive once the messenger left.  This was not the way a king was supposed to comport himself, a king should be stern with his enemies and gracious to all others—yes, he would hear this and all the other maxims of proper royal behavior which Elrond and his mother heaped upon him.  So many maxims that they made Valandil's ears ache. 

Elrond was not particularly interested in Valandil's complaint that he did not _want _to be king.

The man slowly lifted his head, and Valandil could see the rough face of a soldier, a common_ ohtar_."My lord," he began, "my father served your sire in Númenor before it fell and I served him as esquire at Dagorlad and after.  Served him well, so they say, and he was a good lord and king."  He bit his lip, for it was clear he was unnerved by the circumstances of his errand, and kept his eyes to the floor.  Valandil saw this and restrained the urge to snap at him.

"Aye, you served your lord well," rumbled Elrond's voice.  "For I remember you from Dagorlad, and know that you were ever loyal.  Do not be afraid to deliver your message, for this is a haven from all fear and darkness."

Even as the soldier brightened and recovered some of his nerve, Valandil read the subtle prompt in those words, a verbal nudging that told him Elrond should not have had to answer at all.  Yes, he would receive a lecture later, in which the protest that he simply did not_ know _how to give an audience would fall on deaf ears.  "Uh, you have brought something?" he asked.  "Show me what it is…um, please?"

Still on his knees, the man slowly reached into his cloak and drew out a cloth-wrapped bundle.  He laid it at Valandil's feet and carefully undid the wrappings.  The glint of steel appeared among the dark woolen folds.  Valandil leaned forward in his chair to peer more closely at it.

"It's broken," he said petulantly.  "Why are you bringing me a broken sword?"

"These are the shards of Narsil, sire," said the man.  "'Twas your father's blade, and that of his father before him.  He gave it to me to give you, my king.  He wanted you to have it."

Those words at once leapt into Valandil's breast and stirred the passions that warred in the young king, all that he struggled so valiantly and hopelessly to contain.  His answer flooded from him in tears that half-choked him.  "My father gave it to you and let you go, you say?  Or did you simply take it and flee to save your own worthless life?"

All at once he felt the ripples of shock and rage before and behind him, crashing against him.  He saw the stricken look on the soldier's face, the beginning of tears in those hardened eyes, and yet could not stop himself.  "You should have stayed and died with him.  You've no right to be here now when he's dead and you're not."

"That will be enough, Valandil."  Elrond's voice cut through the moment like a blade, forgetting all formality.  The Elf-lord stepped before him, laying a gentle hand on the man's shoulder and drawing him up.  "Forgive your king his harsh words, Cirion, for the grief of his father's death is yet too near and he knows not what he says.  Go now and rest, and he will call you again on the morrow with softer words."

_No, I will not_,Valandil thought.  He sat sullenly while Elrond guided the still-stunned soldier to the door and called for a servant to find him some accommodations.

And then, when the door was shut and his guardian turned to face him with icy eyes, he knew what was coming.  He started to roll his eyes, looking away toward the wall, when in four long strides Elrond crossed the floor and, without warning, struck him hard across the face with the flat of his hand.

"Your father would have been ashamed of you this day," he said coldly.

Valandil's hand flew to his cheek, though he could not say whether he was stunned more by the force of the blow or the words that accompanied it.  "You struck me!"  He had never seen any Elf strike another so, nor had he imagined that they might.

"You are behaving like a foolish mortal child, and that is what mortals do with children who shame them so," said Elrond.  "Perhaps they do much worse, with a leather belt or wooden paddle, but it is my charge to instruct you, not beat you into submission.  And do not presume to tell me you are a king who cannot be instructed thus, for you have shown that you are naught but a petulant child who heeds not what he says to others."

Dismissed, Valandil returned to his quarters and, once behind the stout oak of his door, broke down and wept.  For his own foolishness, yes, as he knew what he said and did was wrong, but Elrond's words cut him far deeper than any blow might have done, and he wondered if his father truly would have been ashamed of him.  He could have asked his mother, but she had secluded herself in mourning and he told himself that it would not have done any good.  Whatever answer she gave him, it would not ease his wondering or his agony.

In his heart Valandil knew the young esquire spoke true._  He wanted me to have that sword_,he thought_.  He could have kept it, but his last thoughts were of me. _  __

He forgot about his stinging cheek and buried his face in the coverlet of his bed, sobbing as he had the night before, when Elrond and his mother brought him into the Elf-lord's study and told him he was now fatherless and brotherless_._

**Notes**:

_cáno_: (Quenya) commander

Estelmo was one of only three survivors of the Gladden Fields.  Tolkien does not mention what became of him afterward, but it seems logical that he would stay close to Valandil.

Valandil was born at Imladris in S.A. 3440 and remained there until T.A. 10, until he was about twenty-one.  Isildur fell with his three eldest sons at the Gladden Fields in October, T.A. 2, when Valandil was thirteen.  The shards of Narsil were brought to Imladris the following year.

_aran-neth_: (Sindarin) young king

Meneldil's temperament is described by Tolkien in _Unfinished Tales_.  As the last child to be born in Númenor before its fall, he was grown at the time of the Last Alliance and fully able to assume the kingship of Gondor after his father Anárion's death.  Tolkien does not say, but it is possible Meneldil might have regarded Isildur's post-Alliance "securing" of Gondor's borders an act of meddling.

_ohtar_: In "The Disaster of the Gladden Fields" in _Unfinished Tales_, the name of the soldier who brings the shards of Narsil to Imladris is Ohtar.  However, this is a word meaning _soldier_, so it seems more likely this was the man's rank and not his actual name.  For the purposes of the story, I have given him the name Cirion.


	2. Chapter Two

On their bed of velvet, the shards had not changed, still keeping their sheen and sharp edge even after a century and a half, when other, lesser blades would have begun to fall toward rust.

Valandil wondered as he often did why the Noldorin smiths of Imladris had not reforged the blade for him, why the shards had not been given to him when, at twenty-one, he left Elrond's household for Annúminas.  Instead, Elrond had summoned him to the Hall of Fire, made him kneel and placed on his brow a silver fillet set with a white gem like a star.  This, said the Elf-lord, was given to him in remembrance of the Elendilmir that had been lost with Isildur.

Many other rich gifts were given to Valandil to take with him to his new home, but the shards of Narsil had not been among them.  He burned with the need to ask why, yet had learned to hold his tongue before Elrond.  If the Elf-lord had not seen fit to tell him, then it was not deemed proper to ask.

Now, more than a hundred years later, the question flared and burned anew in him.  The shards glinted at him from the dark blue velvet, reflecting the stars that glittered through the window of the twilit shrine in which they had been placed.   His fingers twitched with the need to gather up the shards and bear them away, for by right they belonged to him and Elrond could not have gainsaid him, and yet he could not seem to move.

"Often you pondered those shards in your youth," said a voice behind him.  "Your fascination with them has not changed, I see."

Trembling slightly, he turned and faced his host.  A sudden torrential downpour in the High Pass had forced his party to seek the shelter of Imladris, for although there were caves aplenty in the high reaches of the Hithaeglir, these were known to be infested with Orcs and other foul creatures.  The rain ceased by nightfall, yet Valandil lingered, revisiting the corners of his childhood.

"It is a reminder of what I have lost," Valandil answered calmly.  "I cannot help but revisit it."

The furrow between Elrond's brows deepened slightly.  "That is not all you have revisited," he said.  "I am told you have journeyed to the Gladden Fields, and that each year you do this."

Valandil knew that word of his activities had long ago come to Imladris, and that Elrond did not approve, but never had he felt the need to justify his actions with an explanation.  _I am the king of Arnor_, he thought.  _I will do thus, if it is my will, and neither Man nor Elf may hinder me in the errand_.

A barely perceptible shift in Elrond's gaze warned Valandil that perhaps the Elf-lord was reading his thoughts.  He knew some Elves were capable of this, though he had never been able to confirm or deny that Elrond had such ability.  "My father's death and lack of a proper burial weighs heavily upon me," he answered, choosing his words carefully.  "It has ever been thus, as you well know."

These words he had uttered once before, in the correspondence he maintained with the Lord of Imladris.  Some years earlier, Elrond had inquired why he felt the need to build so ostentatious a memorial to his dead mother. _It seems to me that you are compelled to do for one_, Elrond had written, _what you cannot do for both_.

Valandil's answer had been polite yet curt, stating that when they were found, Isildur's bones would rest in that mausoleum beside his queen, and that his son had taken all care to ensure the proper respect would be shown.  Had it been politic, he would have emphasized the _when_ of his statement, rather than the _if_.  Isildur would be found.  His son would see to that.

Still holding his eyes, Elrond nodded.  "Of course," he said.  "But come, you have had a long journey and my servants tell me that you have not yet taken any repast."

Water dripped from the rain gutters of the arched colonnade; but for the sound of the house shedding the last vestiges of the downpour, the night air was still and cold.  Valandil saw his breath turn to vapor before his face and welcomed the warm glow of the Hall of Fire beyond.

All was as he remembered it, and this disconcerted him.  Even as he had grown into the fullness of his manhood and begun to feel the decades weigh upon him, those who had tutored him through his childhood remained unchanged.  Time in Imladris seemed not to move, save in the two young children who thrust themselves forward into Elrond's embrace to demand his attention.

An elf-woman with silver hair immediately came to reclaim the boys, but Elrond merely laughed and instructed her to let them be.  Turning to Valandil, the Elf-lord introduced the trio as his wife Celebrían and his twin sons, Elladan and Elrohir.  Valandil put on his most charming face and greeted the three.  He had sent gifts to Imladris for Elrond's wedding half a century ago, and then again, ten years ago when the twins were born, but this was his first meeting with any of Elrond's family.

A servant came to collect the twins and take them away for a private meal in the nursery while the adults went into the communal dining hall that adjoined the Hall of Fire.  The evening meal was served, plain fare in small quantities such the Elves were accustomed to eat.  Valandil caught the gaze of his captains, those of his men who could be seated in the hall, and silenced their burgeoning complaint with a glare.  Estelmo, of course, was too tactful to grouse or take a larger portion than was seemly, but the others would no doubt require his instruction.

After the meal, Elrond escorted Valandil to a quiet corner of the Hall of Fire.  No special entertainment was planned, for Valandil and his company had arrived too late in the day for such arrangements.  But Valandil did not require such trappings on this visit.  He was weary, he said, and would retire as soon as it was polite for him to withdraw.  As for his own men, Estelmo had them in his keeping and would see to it that all would comport themselves with all due courtesy.  From what Valandil had seen, however, most were far too awestricken by their surroundings and the evanescent air of their hosts to do more than gawk.

"How does your lady and your son?" asked Elrond.  "I did not inquire before, as was proper."

"I left them well enough in Annúminas," answered Valandil.

Elrond paused to accept the glass of smoky amber liquid proffered by a passing servant; another glass was handed to Valandil, who downed it in small sips.  This particular liqueur was subtly flavored with hints of honey, wildflowers and the aged oak of the barrel in which it was fermented; the Elves considered it a mild beverage to be enjoyed in the evenings, but to the senses of one unaccustomed to such a cordial it burned the nostrils and slid down the throat in a trail of fire.

"And does it sit well with them, that you absent yourself so frequently?"

Valandil had not expected such a question, for none among his own people would have dared ask it.  "They have naught to say about it."

When Elrond lifted a querying eyebrow, Valandil felt his spine stiffen against the velvet cushions of his chair.  Though more than a century had passed, he remembered that gesture.  The Elf-lord meant to question him, to take him to task, without seeming to do so.  "You do not think that your frequent absences trouble them, that they are not noted?" he asked softly.

"Eldacar is a man grown," Valandil replied.  "He knows why this is done.  And as for my wife, she has never spoken ill of it."

"But you are their king and they have naught to say about it, is this not so?"

Valandil frowned.  The liquor pooled hot in his belly and made his head ache.  "I like not your tone, Master Elrond, though you be my host.  They know why this is done, and there is no ill in the deed."

"Is there not?" asked Elrond.  "How many decades have you spent in search of Isildur's remains?"

"Does it matter how many?" Valandil retorted.  "He is not yet found and I cannot rest until he is."

Elrond touched his fingers to his lips in contemplation, and sat thus in silence for several moments.  "What of the living, Valandil?" he finally asked, his voice measured and soft.  "When you were young, you often complained to your tutors that you never saw your father or brothers, that they were too frequently away.  And now, like Isildur, you absent yourself from your household, leaving your son as you were left."

"Eldacar is grown," said Valandil.  "I would have him accompany me, yet he is my only son and the dangers of the journey are such that I cannot risk the future of the kingship should we be set upon.  I have not forgotten that my brothers fell with my father.  Eldacar has been told these things.  He is in agreement."

"Or he obeys you and does not reveal to you his heart," said Elrond.

"He has never given me cause to believe he is not in full agreement that his grandsire's remains should be returned to Annúminas for interment," hissed Valandil.  "Why do you speak so to me of things that do not concern you?"

Another servant came with a decanter to refill their glasses, but while Elrond accepted more of the amber liquid, he instructed the servant to bring something milder for his guest.  "You have not drunk _glînaur_ in many decades.  Your head will swim with it if you imbibe more."  He waited until the servant returned with a glass of light, crisp wine and withdrew before speaking again.  "I will ask the question again, Valandil.  Think you not that you do not now do the same to your own son?"

Some small movement in a corner caught Elrond's eye and he gestured.  All at once, his sons ran up to him and burrowed into his arms, filling his lap.  They wanted him to sing or read them a story.  Gently he hushed them, saying it was not polite to interrupt their father when he was with a guest.

Chastised, the twins grew solemn and looked apologetically at Valandil.

Over their heads, Elrond addressed him again.  "When my brother and I were young, our own sire was often away, driven by some compulsion to seek distant shores.  We saw him perhaps once or twice in our infancy, then, when we were grown, we met him once more in the ashes of the War of Wrath.  I understand now what he did and why, and do not question it, but my youth was a very different matter.  Many nights Elros and I wept in our mother's arms and wondered if somehow our father did not love us."

Valandil resisted the urge to fidget or look away, for some barb in Elrond's words pierced him to the core.  He did not wish to contemplate that Eldacar might secretly harbor such contempt for him--_nay, I will not think more on this_--and he shoved it from his mind.

"I have given Eldacar all the love and care I might possibly give a son.  I was not away during the tender years of his youth and see not why you question me.  He is a man grown, and ripe for kingship should I fall by some mischance.  He has no cause for complaint in the treatment he has received from his father."

"Save that your gaze is now turned away from him toward shadows you cannot reclaim," said Elrond.

Valandil chewed his lip, then abruptly stopped when he realized he had not fidgeted so since he had been a child.  "It seems odd to me," he answered, "that you would disapprove.  For the Elves do naught but look backward, pining for the glory they have lost, and yet now one of them would instruct me not to do so."

By now, he reflected, a mortal Man would have thrust his children away from him and risen at the insult, claiming it one too many.  In some quarters, Valandil had seen men fall to fisticuffs over far less words.  Of course, none would ever have behaved so before him.  He was above such open reproach, though he always noted the curse that sometimes lingered in the eyes of those who were displeased with his judgments. 

Elrond did none of this, he noted.  The Elf-lord's posture was relaxed, his hand smoothing and caressing the dark head of one twin while he murmured to the other.  His smile did not waver, even when he returned Valandil's gaze.  "All you have said is true," he answered, "save that there is within me that which is not wholly of Elf-kind and can counsel you thus.  No Elf are you, and it is not in the nature of mortal Men to spend their days fruitlessly looking backward when they have not the leisure of an endless future."

**Notes**

_glînaur_: (Sindarin) "fire-honey," an invented name for brandy or something very much like it.


	3. Chapter Three

Again Valandil found himself in the shrine, staring at the shards that reflected his image tenfold like a broken mirror.  Behind him, he heard the rustle of robes and felt the presence of Elrond filling the doorway.  He waited a space for Elrond to speak, yet the Elf-lord said nothing, only watched.

At last, Valandil broke the uneasy silence.  "I want the shards of Narsil returned to me."  He did not turn to speak, or make any move to see how his words were received.  "If I cannot have my father's mortal remains, I would have his sword whose pieces were brought to me long ago."

He knew it was rudeness not to face Elrond as he made the request—nay, it was a demand and he knew it. 

Many moments passed before he heard the exhalation of breath that preceded Elrond's reply.  "I would give it to you if it was in my power to do so," he said, "but I cannot relinquish it."

"I was not aware that it was yours to withhold."  Valandil heard the acid in his voice.  An urge to soften his tone tugged at him, but he shoved it aside as one of the schoolings of his childhood.  He was no boy who must go warily under the eyes of his guardian; he was a man grown who might speak his own mind without fear of being chastised. 

Elrond's reply held the same cool sting.  "I was not aware that it was the place of a guest to make demands upon his host.  The skill to reforge the blade is not here."

Now, faced with what he knew to be a lie, Valandil turned.  "Many times you told me that those who built this place were Noldorin refugees from Eregion, Celebrimbor's own people, and yet now you would have me believe that there is not one among them with the skill to work steel.  Do you truly think me so gullible?"

"There are many who have since gone over the Sea," said Elrond, "and many smiths among them.  Aye, there are smiths here at Imladris, but some urging beyond my ken tells me the shards must remain here.  Do not ask me to yield that which I must keep, or ask me for what purpose when I know only that I must."

Had an ordinary Man told him such a thing, Valandil would have laughed outright and scorned the reply as nonsense, yet even in his indignation he knew that an Elf might see and know things that a mortal could not.  He had known it during the wars of his youth, when as a child he was a bewildered witness as the entire household of Imladris paused and fell into a long grief for some reason that did not become apparent until a messenger brought word of Ereinion Gil-galad's fall.

_Had I been one of the Firstborn_, he thought, _I would have known of my father's fall long before word of it ever came to me._  And now, decades later, he could not decide if this peculiar foresight of the Elves was something to envy.  "That is all you have to tell me?  Narsil would have a place of honor in my house, and if the blade cannot be remade then I shall lay it in the tomb where my father's bones should also lie."

Elrond's voice became grave and distant.  "It is not for me to give you at this time."

Turning now, Valandil no longer attempted to conceal his frustration.  "You told me the same when you gave me that poor copy of the Elendilmir and sent me on my way in my youth.  But now I say to you nay!  It is a sword of the kings of Men—it is not for some Elf-lord to hide away among his parchments and other relics of past Ages.  It is my _birthright_, and if I choose to bear it away from here, none may gainsay me!"

A Man would have physically restrained him, or called upon guards to do what he might not.  Elrond did neither; he calmly remained where he was.  "Soften your tone, Valandil.  I do not claim it as mine.  I have never done so and do not do so now," he answered, "but I will not yield it to you merely that you might seal it away in the darkness of the tomb as if dead.  Even broken, it remains a flame of the West and may yet stir hope in Men.  I have given you your father's shield and armor, all of him that was brought back from the Gladden Fields, and I would have given you the Elendilmir as well, had it been recovered.  I have given you my affection and counsel insofar as it has been mine to give—"

"When I came to Annúminas I knew almost nothing of the ways of my own people," said Valandil.  "You do not know how strangely they looked on me, who behaved more like an Elf than the Man he was.  Do you know how long I labored to learn the ways of Men that I might govern my own realm?"

Elrond dipped his head in acknowledgement.  "I regret that pain," he said.  "It was never Isildur's intention or mine that your childhood be so isolated.  Your father knew not that your mother was with child when he sent her here, yet in the camps of Dagorlad, in quiet moments, I heard him speak of you, that he rejoiced in your birth and much desired to hold you and see you take your first steps."

This was something Elrond had not told him, even as the youth that he had been wept behind closed doors and struggled to become a man before his time.  _Why did you not tell me this?  Why did you not seek to comfort me with those words when I was young and the grief too near?_  "I did not know this," Valandil said, his throat closing around the words.

"I had not thought to tell you, but the omission was not deliberate," explained Elrond.  "War is not a time for introspection, and many other matters weighed upon me in those days.  Others had looked after you in your infancy, and I did not expect you to remain here.  Your father had written to me to say that he intended to bring both you and your mother back with him to Annúminas.  In my eyes then you were but a temporary guest."

Under the Elf-lord's unwavering gaze, Valandil looked away, at the lintel of the doorway, at the carvings upon it, anywhere but Elrond's face.  At last, he excused himself, pushing past his host almost before he heard Elrond murmur that he had leave to go. 

_I do not care for your permission_, he thought to himself, hissing at the heat that rose to his face as he brushed past his men.  They rose at his passing, and Valandil heard a voice that sounded like Estelmo's inquiring after him, but he did not acknowledge his captain.  He went as quickly as etiquette permitted, scarcely daring to breathe for fear he would not be able to contain himself before he reached the sanctuary of his rooms.

Once in the chamber Elrond had had hastily prepared for him, he evicted his squire and the other servants and bolted the heavy oak door fast behind them.

The night before, weary from the road, he had not recognized the guest room; many such rooms he had occupied as king, most far more ornate than this.  Upon waking, however, he knew it as the chamber he had occupied as a boy.  To see it again brought to him memories unbidden, and a twinge of heartache he had not thought to feel again.

He sat on the edge of the bed, gathering the linens in both hands as if he would gather them to him, bury his face in them.  And then, in a long, rough exhalation of breath, he saw a droplet darken the bleached fabric.  _Nay!  I am a king of Arnor, of the high Men of Númenor.  I do not sob like some maiden!_  He bit down on his lip until he tasted blood, but now droplets both crimson and clear spattered onto the linen.

A knock echoed against the door, followed by Estelmo's voice.  Valandil swallowed and ordered him to leave.  He felt rather than heard Estelmo hesitate, and an instant later the captain spoke again, his voice coming muffled through the oak.

"Sire, if you are not well, let me send for a physician.  The men wonder if you have not taken a chill, you behave so strangely."

"I am not ill," Valandil growled.  His throat hurt from the sobs that had wracked him, and he did not have the energy to speak more.  "Leave.  I will send for you when I have need of you."

Later, as the light began to fade and the shadows creep across the room, he unbolted the door but did not go out.  One of the servants brought food; he had no stomach for it and left it untouched on the small table by the window.  The only thing he had energy enough to do at the moment was take off his shoes before lying down; that he lay upon stiffened droplets of his own blood and tears mattered not to him, nor what others would say when they came to make up the bed.

Darkness took the room.  He lay in a half-doze, vaguely aware of the small movements his men made as they kept watch outside.  He did not pause to consider what they must think of his odd behavior; he was their king and had no need to explain himself to anyone.  Estelmo might inquire in the morning, but would not press the matter once rebuffed.

Voices could be heard murmuring in the corridor, and then the latch turned, so quietly as so to be almost imperceptible among the other night noises.  A shaft of golden light spilled into the room, and was quickly extinguished as the door closed.  Valandil gave a little start, then subsided.  Likely it was another servant, come to strike tinder to the wood in the grate.  Estelmo would not have permitted a stranger to enter.

But instead of the familiar hushed sweeping and scraping around the hearth, he heard the rustle of silk and velvet, and felt a body settle on the edge of the bed.  "Valandil," murmured a voice.  "I know that you are awake.  Still, I will not ask you to rise to acknowledge me.  Know only that I would not lie to you who are mine own kin.  It is not often that I speak of it, but you and your kin are of the blood of Elros whom I loved and lost.  There is much of him in you.  He, too, was restless and driven by his passions, always searching for something.  Whatever it was, I imagine he found it in Númenor.  I only saw him once more after we parted on the shores of Beleriand.  He was in his waning years, and there was a peace in him I had not seen before.

"I would not withhold from you that which you should have, but the shards of Narsil must remain here.  For what purpose I know not, yet there is some higher design in this, that neither you nor I may know."

On shaky arms, Valandil slowly roused himself.  He peered groggily at the shadow that was Elrond.  "Then how can you know?" he mumbled.  "If even you cannot see it, how can you know?"   

He heard the slide of linen under Elrond's hand as the Elf-lord smoothed the rumpled bedding; even in this light, he would have been able to see the droplets of blood.  "It is not for me to try to explain the ways of the Firstborn, how they may know where Men may not.  I can say only that I have foreseen a day when the sword may be remade.  Do not ask me more, for I have no answer."

Valandil did not want to believe him.  _The sword is all I have left_.  He lay silently in the darkness, waiting for Elrond to speak again.

"There is no profit in pain, or in clinging to the broken pieces of the past.  That which you seek is gone, mortal matter washed into the sea by the mighty Anduin or eaten away or buried so deeply none might find it.  You know this, Valandil, you have known it from the first."

"I know," Valandil murmured. 

"Then why do you persist?  What compulsion drives you search so fruitlessly for so long, when others would long ago have abandoned the hunt?"

His wife had asked him, and when he would not answer, his son had asked.  _I am the king of Arnor_, he had thought then, _and they have no right to question what must be_.  And so he had been silent, ignoring the disapproval that met his orders.  _Why, then, must I answer you, Elrond, who is even less to me?_

"Because bones are all I can ever have," he said brokenly.  "It would be something I can hold in my hands and say _this is my father_.  And if I do not…do not do this, I will have failed him."  Tears spilled from the corners of his eyes, and as the first rivulets streamed down his cheeks onto the pillow, he released the sob that rose in his gorge.

He heard the shift of fabric, felt the weight adjust itself upon the bed, then a hand was gently touching his hair, smoothing it away from his damp face.  A voice whispered above him, lulling and shushing him.  _Why are you doing this for me now, when I am a man and ashamed?_ he wondered.  "You should….leave," he choked.  "I-I am—"

Elrond's reply was a warm breath in his ear.  "There is no shame in tears.  Your grandfather was mighty among the lords of Men and yet twice he wept before me like a man broken, once after the Downfall and again when Anárion was slain.  And I wept, too, when Elros died and Gil-galad fell.  Even among the Valar there are those who weep.  Do not think yourself above tears."

Shame had been reduced to a mere word, a sound that carried weight among the men outside the door but not here.  His numb senses carried him beyond shame, to a place he had last inhabited in his boyhood.   Emptiness met him as surely as the waters of the Anduin held nothing for him, and he made no answer save for his tears, only felt his sobs gradually subside as his body lost the strength to sustain his grief, and he slid into a benumbed slumber.

"This gift is for Eldacar your son."  The bundle Elrond handed up to him was square and slightly heavy; it was no doubt a volume of lore such as the Elf-lord was wont to give.  Eldacar liked books, though, and would not groan as his father had upon receiving such a present.

Valandil took the bundle in his crook of his arm and handed it off to Estelmo to pack away with the gift the Lady Celebrían had given him for his queen.  He wondered why Elrond had waited until he was already in the courtyard and mounted to give his gifts, but stifled the urge to ask. 

He murmured the proper courtesies, allowing only his eyes to convey his impatience.  _I would be gone from this place and you know it.  Already I have tarried too long, wallowing in my weakness_.  All his men knew was that for two days their king had been unwell and unable to leave his rooms; perhaps Estelmo guessed at the truth, but he did not speak of it.

"And this is for you," said Elrond, handing up a long, narrow package.  By the length and weight of it, Valandil knew it was a sword.  As he took it, Valandil's eyes wandered across the courtyard, past the throng of assembled servants to the path that led to the shrine, and his breath caught in his throat.  He did not dare to hope the gift was what he thought it might be. 

Elrond laid a hand upon his stirrup, drawing his attention.  "Nay, it is not that," he said.  "Take now this heirloom of my house and let Narsil remain for some future hope."

Valandil met Elrond's gaze, holding his eyes for a moment before glancing down at the stirrup.  Elrond's face tightened imperceptibly and he slowly released the stirrup.  Both hands came up, crossing over Elrond's breast as the Elf-lord bowed to his guest.  "_Pelo__ nalú i laiss en-galadh guil lín_," he said.

Once before, as the twenty-one year old Valandil prepared to leave Imladris for the first time, Elrond had released him with such words.  And Valandil, dressed for the first time in kingly raiment and surrounded by noble Men who had come from Annúminas to escort him to his new home, had bowed in turn and murmured "_Hennaid__ evyr_" to honor the lord who had been his guardian and acknowledge his passing from youth into full manhood.

A part of him felt compelled to repeat those words, to give thanks for what had been offered, yet in Valandil's heart there was numbness where his joy should have been.  He would not ride this path again.  There was no longer any hope of profit in it, and though he had known it long before he returned to Elrond's house and was forced to acknowledge the uselessness of his grief, coldness burned in him for those things Elrond withheld from him.

_Among the other things of the past which I must bury_, he thought, _all memory of this place I will bury as well.  I have had my catharsis.  I will think no more on tears._

Touching his fingers to his cloak-clasp, Valandil replied, "_Be iest lín_."

And then, gathering the reins in his hands, he urged his mount forward through the gates of Imladris for the second and final time.

**Notes**:     

_Pelo__ nalú i laiss en-galadh guil lín_: (Sindarin) May the leaves of your life tree never wither.

_Hennaid__ evyr_: (Sindarin) Many thanks

_Be iest lín_: (Sindarin) As you wish


End file.
